Akron Police radio traffic entertaining to say the least ..

I'm fairly used to having an Akron Police radio playing all day long in the newsroom. As a journalist, you've always got one ear open for the serious stuff. A "33" is a shooting .. "34" is a stabbing ... "5" is emergency traffic ... "100" is swat ... and so on.

The dispatchers and officers do a pretty good job of being brief and to the point .. following set rules and procedures to keep the lines of communication open.

Still, you can't help but hear the tone in their voices with some of the calls that come in.

A short time ago, a dispatcher sent an officer to Gauge street for a woman driving while completely naked. There was just enough pause in the responding officers' voice that you could "feel" him smirking on the other end -- probably wondering what law to charge this woman with breaking.

I also heard a call go out today of a man with a gun and a scope on top. Pretty serious call and it obviously gets the officers' attention in a hurry. As the officer races to the scene, the dispatcher added additional information that the man was actually a teenager and the gun was a B.B. gun he was using to shoot bottles for target practice.

A few days ago, a dispatcher told an officer about a problem with a teenager who's parents don't speak English. The dispatcher ended the call with a laughing "good luck" as in "good luck with that."

Also today, a dispatcher sent an officer to a small brush fire near I-77. When the officer got on scene, he confirmed that there really was a fire, and the dispatcher responded with something like "yeah, I thought so. I've gotten a million 9-1-1 calls."

My favorite happened a few months ago. A dispatcher called out a BOLO ("be on the look out") for a man near the downtown bus stop with no pants. She then began describing his height, weight, shirt color .. before finally stopping and saying "I'm guessing you'll know him when you see him."